Teen on Hunger Strike Gets Flight to Royal Wedding

She went on a 16-day hunger strike for a cause: to get to the royal wedding. Now, the dream is coming true for 19-year-old Estibalis Chavez of Mexico, after a pitying man lent her the airfare to head to London. Desperate to attend the wedding, she spent two weeks camped outside the British embassy in Mexico, losing 19 pounds as she consumed only water. Though she earned the nickname “crazy lady of the embassy,” a passerby was “moved.”

“I think she is right to fight for what she wants,” said the man, who lent Chavez $1,250. Having followed the royal family all her life, Chavez vowed that she’d fast until she died if that’s what it took to go to the wedding, the AP reports. A letter from a Prince William staffer told her there was not a spare invitation available for her. But with the money in hand, she aims to watch from the sidelines—though she worries immigration staff at the airport might bar her entry, fearing she’s a threat to the royals. She plans to give William and Kate a portrait she painted of them. (More Mexico stories.)